20 March 2019

Sandbox - 20mar19

[The Dems want to bump up SCOTUS membership so that they can also have a majority in that branch of government, and do away with the Electoral College to "make every vote count", and give the Hormonal Hordes with WIP brains the vote. And if that's not enough, then do away with the 1A and 2A, and, aw hell, just do away with the Constitution while we're at it. The fundamental transformation of America as promised. gjr]

Comments

PaulE 147pm - I thought you could answer it with the implied presumption that Mueller has nothing indictable in his report. I do agree that you shouldn’t be able to indict a sitting president, which means that he’d go directly into a court trial under our judicial branch triad. I think that anything indictable discovered about a president should be first dealt with by Congress as an impeachable offense. In the process, it’s conceivable that Congress could also exonerate him, and in the interval the country would have continuity in the executive branch.

Ozz 207pm - You have a zero batting average in understanding, let alone predicting, my thought and opinions - yet you persist. Remarkable. Focusing one Trump’s tax returns might seem like a fruitful tack for impeachment. Yet it does raise a more thoughtful question - if there’s dirt there, the IRS would have blown the cover off that years ago if not sooner. That bureaucracy has demonstrated itself as being partisan to the hilt, even when they’ve had no evidence to go on - being vindictive has always sufficed. So if Trump’s tax returns had some evidence of culpability, why hasn’t the IRS blown the whistle on him already? Yet, and yet there’s always a possibility of digging something out of years of NY and international real estate dealings that could at least serve an extra-legal propaganda purpose to denigrate Trump before the 2020 election. Every little bit would help.

In any case, I’d be surprised if Trump’s tax returns are so squeaky clean that the Dems could find nothing from which to make hay. That itself is reason enough for him not to have released them. Why hand them the rope with which they would seek to hang you?

So George it's consistent with your belief that a sitting President cannot be indicted while in office that makes a wait and see what Mueller has opinion legitimate since he may or may not have information that would be indictable for a normal person committing a similar crime.

Why are you celebrating? Trump could not have been indicted by Mueller. But a bunch of his closest business and political allies pled guilty and are going to jail as a result of the Muller investigation, more than those of any other sitting president. Other investigations are ongoing. The report’s contents are not yet public either. And that’s a victory? Well OK then. Let’s see how this plays out in 2020.

Since the investigation was based of false accusations and pretenses, all those convictions* should be tossed, and records expunged.
The PEE PEE papers were a fabrication and fraud. The warrants were produced on fraud. Judges were lied to.
Yet somehow you will think they are A OK.

The po' ol' fakenewsman has to hand his hand on a hope and a prayer. No indictments of the Trump brothers, Kushner nor Ivanka as promised eh? No indictments that touched on the Prez. How you splain that? Cant, can ya. Sweet.

In March 1992, during his presidential campaign, the Clintons acknowledged that on their 1984 and 1985 tax returns, they had claimed improper tax deductions for interest payments made by the Whitewater Development Company. Due to the age of mistake, the Clintons were not obligated to make good the error...

I've always wanted to watch someone order a bowl of ranch dressing and a leaf of lettuce to scoop it up with.

In terms of the scorecard of indicted associates, I always assumed it's just comes from flying too close to the flame. If you apply a fine-tooth comb to the affairs of the various fixers and dogsbodies throughout the years, I would guess that most go to crossbar hotel for a minute or two. Take a James Baker and apply a floor of a building of FBI surveillance gear and accountants, and you get a conviction for something or the other. A Lyndon Johnson would get a million years plus life.

Stage two might be the standard bodycam that cops need to wear when dealing with perps. Everybody goes to jail. No one left to guard.

Perhaps the thing to do is to make fewer things illegal.

My favorite part of the modern era is the perjury charge. Lie/fudge the truth about a legal thing you did, and off to the hoosegow.

Scenes,, the stock price on Russian dressing has tanked in the last week due the leaks of Muller's dead hunting dog.
So the witch hunters need to dig locally. Nothing more American than Ranch D. ( 8 out of 10 terrorists on San Juan Ridge agree)

No changing the subject to BDS now that your supply of rancid Russian dressing has dried up. What ever did you do with all that popcorn you have been warehousing? You know you are going to have to suffer through 6 more years of this don't you? 2 years of prognostications up in po' ol' fakenews smoke.

Punchy @ 4:37 pm...My comment was directed to the freak of nature grotesque Fat Boy, not you. And this is a good time to remind you that you vowed NEVER to address Walt again. To do otherwise would make you a liar. :)

Dr. Rebane @ 2:53 pm

I had to laugh yesterday when as soon as the news hit that Meuller delivered his report to the Attorney General as required by statue, suddenly some “experts” and legal analysts were frantically searching and acted like they had just discovered about indicting (or not) a sitting President, ROFLMAO.

I have posted the two legal rulings on the matter in the past few months, but obliviously I was premature.
For the reader, it is not my opinion, Dr. Rebane’s opinion, or some Max Headroom’s opinion.
The topic came up during the Nixon possible impeachment days. The Office of Legal Counsel, which advisers the President on constitutional matters (and DOJ by extension) issued a legal ruling that a sitting POTUS cannot be indicted for criminal charges while in office.
Later, when the Clinton ‘impeachment’ issues came up, the legal topic was revisited again. The Office of Legal Counsel did another exhaustive and comprehensive look into the constitutional matter, and issued their ruling in 2001 (I believe)...which came to the exact same conclusion.

The founders debated this issue as well. Since there was not a legal precedent at the time, examples going back to 1375 were discussed! In fact, the wording of the Consitution draft was changed to reflect the ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ wording and put the penalty in the hands of Congress so that political opponents or a cabinet member seeking to take over the high office (happened in the past centuries ago) or some state AGs or whoever could press charges and drag a POTUS in court. The founders and the Office of Legal Counsel figured correctly that the Office of the Presidency required so much time and energy to discharge its duties and responsibilities that criminal charges (indictments) would render the office unable to execute its Constitutional responsibilities.

Bottomline. The Special Prosecutor, all DOJ procesutors, etc..must follow the guidelines and practices of the Justice Department rules. The Book, if you prefer. Mueller’s hands are tied, since he must follow the guidelines, methods, and practices outlined in The Book. If he found anything, it will be in the report. So, hope springs eternal for the TDS inflicted,
———————in other related issues———-
It is Constitutionally impossible to charge any POTUS with obstruction of justice for firing an inferior employee. I have known this for two years, but I figured stay quiet and let the unhinged catch up, :)

The Greaser and Kushner are not protected. Meuller did not charge them. He would if he had the goods. No indictments.
———————-

Bill. Another case of Dr. D.J. Trump's butthurt cream needs to be sent to KVMR. Trump has made an extra billion bucks on the sales.
Investigate that Emery... There may be a crime. Making money off LIB's pain that he caused. Preparation H may sue for anti trust violations.

Expulsion, meh. If you really want to punish the pampered cheaters who only cared about the parties and game days you do this;

Lori Loughlin's daughters Olivia Jade and Isabella Giannulli were reported last week to have withdrawn from the University of Southern California after their parents' involvement in the college admissions cheating scandal came to light. But TMZ is now reporting that the university may still take drastic further action on them, going so far as to ban them from the school's campus permanently.

On the evening Robert Mueller submitted his report to the Justice Department, ending the special counsel investigation that has clouded all but a few months of his presidency, President Donald Trump was not huddled in a war room or dictating defiant tweets to his underlings.
Instead he was on the tiled patio of Mar-a-Lago, bathed in golden light, with his wife and son Barron, who had reached teenagerhood two days earlier.

In the eyes of the President and his aides, many of whom traveled to South Florida for the weekend, it was a moment to celebrate: the conclusion of an investigation that did not find enough evidence to indict the President or his confidants for conspiring with Russia to win the 2016 election.

“Waters said, “This president has a way of trying to get into people’s heads”

Darn, the prove is in the pudding. She should know and know it well. The whole article after her comment is evidence of Trump kicking around in her melon. Trump swept out the cobwebs and made himself at home. Is there nothing Orange Man cannot do?

Interesting, very interesting. I heard reports back then that Hillary’s buddy Bloomenthaul was pushing hard for our intervention in Libya because of some armament contracts with his buddies he was lobbying Hillary for. Money to be made if we can invade. You go girl.

“On October 29, 2009, a Clinton Foundation employee and close Clinton adviser Sid Blumenthal forwarded a proposal for a commercial contract related to improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from retired CIA officer-turned-contractor Gary Berntsen, to Clinton (copying Cheryl Mills), saying that Berntsen had been “unable to break through the bureaucracy with it.” Mills then forwarded the email to Jake Sullivan. Blumenthal noted that “Cody [Shearer] and I are following up.” Blumenthal and Shearer were both implicated in the creation of the Obama administration’s anti-Trump Russia “collusion” counterintelligence operation by providing “reports” relating to Trump-Russia collusion to the U.S. Government.”

"Hillary Clinton repeatedly stated that the 55,000 pages of documents she turned over to the State Department in December 2014 included all of her work-related emails," Judicial Watch explained in its announcement of the release of the final batch of emails. "In response to a court order in another Judicial Watch case, she declared under penalty of perjury in 2015 that she had 'directed that all my emails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were or are potentially federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this has been done.' In 2017, the FBI uncovered 72,000 pages of documents Clinton attempted to delete or did not otherwise disclose."

"In cataloging the presidents actions, many of which took place in public view the report identifies NO action or actions in our judgement constitute obstructive conduct and had a nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding and were done with corrupt intent each of which under the terms and principles of federal prosecution guiding charging decisions would need to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to establish an obstruction of justice offence." AG Report on Muller summary.

If I were a crow I would be heading to the deep forest because there is going to be a lot of eating crow going on in newsrooms and the halls of congress -

Buckle up, folks. Because the meltdowns we’re about to see concerning the principle conclusions of the Mueller Report via a letter from Attorney General Bill Barr will rival or top those seen on election night 2016.

Upon being read portions of the Barr letter, MSNBC host and one-time Trump campaign correspondent Katy Tur was forced to painstaking admit that Mueller’s findings have “vindicate[d] the President on collusion.”

"One thing for sure Mueller knows everything Flynn knows and that may be considerable and may keep Flynn and his son out of the slammer. He would only trade up so the next likely to fall is Kushner and possible the Trumplet. If he plays trade up with them it's only Big
Daddy left. It that happens Trump will be left twisting slowly in the wind."

"The walls are closing in. "

"Gregory do you actually think the Mueller investigation is just going to go away?"

--------------

So what's the chance that the Italians will lend us this float for the 4th of July parade?

“The Iraq war faceplant damaged the reputation of the press. Russiagate just destroyed it”

“NothingTrump is accused of from now on by the press will be believed by huge chunks of the population, a group that (perhaps thanks to this story) is now larger than his original base. As Baker notes, a full 50.3% of respondents in a poll conducted this month said they agree with Trump the Mueller probe is a “witch hunt”.

“There will be people protesting: the Mueller report doesn’t prove anything! What about the 37 indictments? The convictions? The Trump tower revelations? The lies! The meeting with Don, Jr.? The financial matters! There’s an ongoing grand jury investigation, and possible sealed indictments, and the House will still investigate, and…

“Stop. Just stop. Any journalist who goes there is making it worse.”

“CNN told us Trump officials had been in “constant contact” with “Russians known to U.S. intelligence,” and the former director of the CIA, who’d helped kick-start the investigation that led to Mueller’s probe, said the President was guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” committing acts “nothing short of treasonous.”

“Hillary Clinton insisted Russians “could not have known how to weaponize” political ads unless they’d been “guided” by Americans. Asked if she meant Trump, she said, “It’s pretty hard not to.” Harry Reid similarly said he had “no doubt” that the Trump campaign was “in on the deal” to help Russians with the leak.

“None of this has been walked back. To be clear, if Trump were being blackmailed by Russian agencies like the FSB or the GRU, if he had any kind of relationship with Russian intelligence, that would soar over the “overwhelming and bipartisan” standard, and Nancy Pelosi would be damning torpedoes for impeachment right now.

“There was never real gray area here. Either Trump is a compromised foreign agent, or he isn’t. If he isn’t, news outlets once again swallowed a massive disinformation campaign, only this error is many orders of magnitude more stupid than any in the recent past, WMD included. Honest reporters like ABC’s Terry Moran understand: Mueller coming back empty-handed on collusion means a “reckoning for the media.”

“Of course, there won’t be such a reckoning. (There never is). But there should be. We broke every written and unwritten rule in pursuit of this story, starting with the prohibition on reporting things we can’t confirm.”

“Google’s motto is b.s. They are destroying the most glorious gift humanity was granted in the last 300 years. Google is illuminati. Illuminati is google. The future under google is a fascist dystopia, their way or the highway, no room for dissidents, no room for free speech. Google is a boot stomping on your face for eternity. sailor.“

“Google are deep state. Forget about conventional wars, forget about spies, forget about intelligence agencies, forget about all of that. It’s all about the internet and google run the internet. They decide how you feel, what you think, what information you can and can’t look at, and ultimately who does and doesn’t have a voice. sailor.”

In a 176-page report, the American Bar Association recently warned of an “existential crisis” that has reached “unprecedented levels” in the number of immigration cases clogging up the courts. The ABA notes that there are over one million backlogs in the immigration courts. The report states, “Crucially, the number of cases pending before the immigration courts (which were about 262,000 cases at the time of the 2010 Report) has increased to unprecedented levels. There were more than 760,000 pending cases at the end of FY 2018 and an additional 330,000 cases that could be returned to active dockets in short order.”

The report adds, “Today the immigration courts are facing an existential crisis. In light of the fundamentally changed nature of the threat to the immigration court system, the overall conclusion … is that the current system is irredeemably dysfunctional and on the brink of collapse.”

Furthermore, The Washington Times reports that “deportation officers are cutting loose more than 1,000 illegal immigrant family members a day, setting them free into border states as the surge of migrations overwhelms the government’s ability to handle them, officials revealed Thursday.”

I think the West is facing two existential threats. Internet monopolies which are slowly merging with government (and it's 17 intelligence agencies) and unlimited immigration from the Third World.

The rest of it, monetary policy, health policy, the occasional COIN war, men with wigs in the womens bathroom, are just trivial things on the margin. Those are all provably survivable with little change to the core. Neither of those issues have been a 'conservative' vs 'liberal' issue but new lines are being drawn as we speak.